The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in 1906 to establish the school.
[3] The school's founder and first superintendent was William C. Ritter, a graduate of the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind (VSDB) in Staunton and president of the Virginia Association of the Deaf.
Whitehead served for twenty years, overseeing significant improvements to the quality and variety of instruction offered, and an increase in extracurricular activities.
[7] In 1978 the state unveiled a $1.8 million capital improvement plan for the Hampton campus.
[3] Phenix Industrial LLC, a real estate company, bought 23 acres (9.3 ha) of the former property for $908,000.
[12] The campus, located at 700 Shell Road near Hampton’s boarder with Newport News had 72 acres (29 ha) of space.